Test

Monday, 28 January 2013

Heimtextil, part 1 … Teil 1

As promised I now want to share my impression from Heimtextil with you! I'll split this review into four parts as there's quite a bit to talk about …

Heimtextil Frankfurt is dubbed "the biggest and most important platform for manufacturers, retailers and designers" in the field of home and contract textiles. Let me tell you one thing: IT IS BIG!

I went there with my fellow designer Miranda Mol … we've been there for two days, and we just managed to see 2 halls – out of 21! You can easily get lost without planning ahead. For us the most important hall to visit was hall 4.2, with all the design studios and agents. We as well wanted to look at trends in hall 0, called "trendforum".

Today we'll go into the "trendforum" together. It was showing the trends for 2013 and 2014, divided into 4 parts – according to 4 major social currents, representing the typical consumers of today and tomorrow: the geologist, the historian, the inventor and the eccentric.
At the entrance you were greeted by 4 "trend heads" showing the main colours. Then you could enter through stage-like doors into the respective trend "appartments", each of them quite big and divided into several "chambers".

You are now entering the geologist appartement:Sie betreten nun das Appartement des Geologen:

It felt like entering a strange cave … lots of rocks and stones, metallic sheen, copper, irregular textures … a raw and sometimes surrealistic atmosphere. Think rocks, crystals, geological textures inspired by erosion and oxidation, mixed with neon colours and metal sparkle, softened only a bit by fur. A real urban cave! The geologist is discribed as a lover of nature, a guardian of the earth, but at the same time an explorer - someone who is interested in the unknown, in the deep layers of the earth, in the science of nature. Geologists love natural products and want to know about the origin of a product as well as looking out for real quality.

A week later, when I was visiting "Passagen" in Cologne (another big interior design event I will tell about next week), I found the german magazine "Wohn!Design" and within a feature about exhisiting houses/ appartements that highlight the 4 trends from Heimtextil. I don't dare to show too much of the magazine here for copyright reasons, but here is a taster:

That's the house representing the geologist trend, designed by architect Bjarne Mastenbroek. It's literally carved into a mountain. Just awesome! Luckily it has a website, look here: http://www.villavals.ch